


Reflections Upon Reflections

by The_Playground_of_Alcor



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Horror, Mirror creature, Mirrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 07:43:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21050783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Playground_of_Alcor/pseuds/The_Playground_of_Alcor
Summary: Case #00239432: Statement by Jack Conner, regarding a self-reflective encounter





	Reflections Upon Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> My first Magnus Archives fic! I just got inspired, and ended up writing this in, like, 3 hours? I don't even know how that happened!
> 
> Fair warning: I'm still in the process of listening to the TMA back catalog, only on 32, Hive, so no spoilers please! I've already been informed that this has a vibe very much like something else that I have yet to hear, so that'll be fun for me to discover!

_ (click) _

Statement of Jack Conner, regarding a self-reflective encounter. Original statement given April 5th of 2014, audio recording by Johnathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've never much cared for mirrors. That's not to say I ever had any active distaste for them, mind, I just… never really cared much about what was in them. Just a glance in the morning to make sure my hair was reasonably presentable, and that was about it for the day. I guess that's a good thing, means I'm not overly narcissistic, at least no more so than most folks. But, then again, that was… Before.

These days, I don't have a single mirror in my home, and every surface that can reflect has some sort of cover on it, just to be safe. Oh, god, that makes me sound like a lunatic. I'm sure that's the folder you'll file me under, too, but I swear I'm not. It's not even _ all _ mirrors or _ all _ reflections I don't care for, just the ones that can reflect another reflection.

I guess I should just start at the beginning, huh? It happened about 4 months ago. As you can probably tell from the contact info, I'm not exactly from this neck of the woods. I'm from Texas, Fort Worth, to be precise. I'm only in London visiting a friend, and when she happened to mention this place, I thought, what the hell? Maybe they'll have something to say on the matter. Couldn't hurt to talk about it, either. So here I am.

Sorry, getting off track. 4 months ago, in January. That's when… It happened. I have a couple jobs to hold myself down with, but my primary one is as a pizza delivery driver. Now, delivery drivers are a lot like trash men. Most folks don't actually notice you, even if they're looking right at you, and that means we get to see a lot more of folks than others might. We also can see sides of folks that they won't show to anyone else, to anyone they might see again. Hell, one time, I had a woman try that old standby porn bit, where she doesn't have money for her pizza. She learned pretty quickly that a roll in the hay doesn't pay my bills, and she scrounged up the money quick enough.

Sorry, off track again. So, this one delivery, it was on a Tuesday, the 7th. It was a pretty slow day, nothing else had happened, I took my last run of the day, and it was to a high rise office building, the one I listed in the "Occurrence Information" part of the form. It was one of the fancier ones, so I was pretty hopeful for a decent tip, and hurried there accordingly. The instructions listed the exact office as being on the 34th floor, so to the elevators I went.

That was where it happened. In that elevator. See, it was one of those elevators that had all the walls as mirrors. Even the doors, even the panel with the buttons, perfectly reflective surfaces, all to make that infinity effect. Which was neat, make no mistake. I hit the button for 34, and on the way up, I amused myself by waving at myself, and watching the delayed action pass down along the conga line of my reflected selfs.

The elevator dings, and the doors opened, and I stepped out. And then I stopped. I hadn't even looked before stepping out, otherwise I probably wouldn't have. But outside that elevator was a hallway that was also lined with mirrors. I was sure I'd gotten the wrong floor, so I tried to go back to the elevator, but as I turned, the doors had already closed. The worst part of it, was that they formed a perfect seal, I couldn't even tell where the doors were. There was no call button, there was nothing. Just a corridor stretching off to my left and right of mirror.

In hindsight, I was a lot more blasé about the whole thing than j should have been. I stayed there for a bit, rationalizing that someone else would come along and show me the trick to calling the elevator. Nobody came. I tried to call the customer on my cell, explain that I'd stumbled into the mirror floor, and have them tell me how to get out. But when I tried to unlock it, it just froze up, glitched out. Wouldn't even show me the lock screen with the time.

I don't know how long I waited there, avidly avoiding looking into the infinities shown to me. It was all a bit dizzying if I looked too far into them. Eventually, I decided to move on, try to find another elevator bank maybe. So off I went, down the reflective hallway.

Again, I don't know how long I walked. It could have been minutes, but it could have been days, weeks. I kept going, down corridors that branched off, met with others, and branched off again. At one point, I realized that I _ should _ be feeling hungry, it had been that long. But I wasn't, for whatever reason. The pizza I carried with me never got cold, either, and I never got tired of carrying them. That should have been my first hint-- Well, ok, _ second _hint-- that something was wrong about where I was.

Again, I don't know how long it was before I saw it. No clock, after all. At first, it was just in the corner of my eye. Something shifted that wasn't me. I looked, but of course, it was gone before I could focus on it. I dismissed it as a trick of the mind, wanting to see something else in these halls.

The next time, I was sure there was _ something _ there, I knew it wasn't my mind. I called out, but no response. Knowing now what it was, or at least what it looked like, I'm not sure what I would have done if it had.

By this time, it was patently obvious that, wherever I was, it was nowhere good. It was a maze of mirrors, and everywhere I looked, I just saw that same pale green infinity, with countless versions of me staring back, and equally countless versions with their back to me. 

The next time I saw something, I was sure I'd been dragged to hell. I was at a junction, trying to decide if I should go left or right, when I glanced up, staring at my reflections as though they might help me. It was then that I realized there was something off. It took me a moment to put my finger on it, but when I did, I felt my heart skip a beat or two. Those reflections of mine that were facing away? They weren't _ entirely _ looking away anymore. I could see now, they all were slightly turning their heads. I could see the hints of a profile of them, despite the fact that I was looking dead-on.

I knew I had to get out, and soon, but I still had no idea how. I dropped the pizza, finally, and just took off. It was easy enough to avoid running into a wall, I just slowed down as I started to approach myself. But with every corner I turned, I could see those infinite other reflections turn just a little bit more. I started to see their faces. Just like mine, but with a horrible, terrible rictus grin stretching their faces wider than they should be. 

Worse of all were their hands. Skeletal, long and thin things, slowly reaching up as they turned around, reaching out to grip, to squeeze. (Look, I know, I _ know _ they wore my faces, but I can't very well say it was me reaching out, can I?) They kept getting closer and closer, with every turn I made, turn after turn, closer and closer, I could feel them practically on my throat, and then--

I turned a corner, and they were gone. As if they'd never been, all my reflections were perfectly in line, as they should be. I knew something was still wrong with them, though, and I saw pretty quickly what it was this time. The further out my reflections went, the more… The more _ decayed _ they were. It was gradual, subtle, but something about this place let me see much farther into that infinity effect than I would have been able to normally.

Looking down the line of my face, I saw it wither and rot, sloughing off the very bone in patches, until finally, just before the blackness of infinity took my reflections from my vision, I was just a skeleton standing there.

And then, in the blink of an eye, I was restored. All my reflections, again, were as they were supposed to be. I knew better by now, though, and watched for whatever horrors would come next. And come they did.

As I watched, as far out as my eyes could strain, I saw myself suddenly jerk, and get yanked downward with a visible cry. Then the next one. And the next, and the next, on down the line, getting closer and closer. I stood there, frozen, as I watched my reflections be taken suddenly, yanked off to the side or down. Once, I saw some great maw reach down and pull it up. As the cascading wave came closer, I could swear I heard my own cries in the distance, along with the growl of some beast as it consumed me.

I'm… not entirely ashamed to admit that that broke me. As the wave approached me, I just collapsed there, weeping, no idea what was happening to me or why, if there was even a reason. I just waited for that inevitable feeling of teeth around me and something yanking me apart.

The next thing I felt wasn't teeth or claws, though. It was a hand on my shoulder. I jerked nonetheless, and opening my eyes, I saw that elevator, with the pizza bag in front of me, and the doors, held open by concerned folks in suits. I quickly stood up and played it off. I wasn't too keen on getting questioned about anything, and just wanted to go about my day.

Turns out, wherever I went, I guess it was outside of time or something? Because once I stepped out, I saw that only a couple minutes had passed. I made my delivery, and left. I took the stairs, though, just in case.

I didn't talk about it to anyone else, not until now. Writing it all down, well… I guess, in your vernacular, I'd say it all sounds more than a bit barmy. But I don't think even my imagination is that good. It happened. And now, I just hope it won't happen again. Next time, there might not be anyone to open the doors for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End statement.

Well. Once again, I find a statement that's nearly unverifiable. Not only did it occur almost entirely in some other realm, but that realm apparently lay conveniently outside of the flow of time. Not exactly someplace with a front door we can knock on, is it?

That said, a great many cultures hold myths of creatures or deities that inhabit mirrors or reflective surfaces, enough so that one might conclude a seed of truth could lay at the heart of them. These entities take a variety of roles, from benign trickster to malicious shape-stealer. Thanks to America being such a self-defined melting pot of cultures, it's impossible to determine the cultural nature of an encounter such as this, if one were to believe it in the first place.

Regardless, I did as much following up as I could. I reached out to my counterpart in the Usher Foundation, and with only the promise of a single favor, convinced her to follow up on it. She accessed the listed building's security camera records from the day listed, and found our delivery boy. The camera shows him boarding the lift, ascending, and disembarking. A point of interest, here: the walls of said lift were not, in fact, covered in mirrors. Only one wall, the back wall, was. The remaining walls were wood paneling.

He disembarked on floor 13, however, and boarded again seconds later. He then stood stock still for the remainder of the ride up, staring at his reflection in the mirror on the rear wall, at one point unceremoniously dropping his pizza bag, before himself dropping with a cry into a fetal position. Seconds later, the lift arrives at the 34th floor, whereupon a concerned businesswoman can be seen entering and touching his shoulder. The rest proceeds as described. By all appearances, it was merely some kind of mental break, particularly given certain inconsistencies in the story told, but for a couple points.

Firstly, aside from residing in the Autism Spectrum, he has no history of mental illness, and showed no signs before or since of any such mental breaks.

Secondly, in addition to a copy of the footage, my counterpart sent me an image, a single frame, taken just before the subject collapsed. It seems to show the walls receding into infinity, much as you would see in a chamber whose walls were formed of mirrors. Additionally, in one of those dark infinities, a shape can be made out, something twisted. Something that seemed to be lunging forward.

Usher attempted to contact Mr. Conner for a follow up interview, but apparently he was reported missing 2 months after filing his statement. Police records indicate foul play to be suspected, as investigation into his residence found signs of a struggle. The signs primarily consisted of every reflective surface having been destroyed in some way, save for a small pocket compact mirror; the kind that holds two mirrors in a single case.

End recording.

_ (click) _


End file.
